The inner workings of the Demo screen explained

[Lord N.]

I think that there's an error for export/imports. Actually the Exports show the income you get from the trade routes. At least that's the case in vanilla 1.74.

I added the trade route income from all my cities, and the result was the same as the Exports value (238; the Imports was around 150).

And for testing, I canceled all open borders, and my income was decreased for 70, which is exactly the value I get for the 238 commerce with 30%.

BTW, great article!

 

[Robi D]

I think that there's an error for export/imports. Actually the Exports show the income you get from the trade routes. At least that's the case in vanilla 1.74.

Thats the gold you get from selling your goods overseas, hence it comes under exports. Its somewhat counter intuitive

 

[Robi D]

The list of BtS power-affecting buildings is missing Castles. I believe they have a value of 2000 soldiers.

So they were, good spotting

 

[TabascoBob]

I've learned to monitor certain things on the demographics screen, particularly the power rating and # of soldiers, and there have been helpful threads on why that information is so important.

My question is about the demo info that seems "secondary" such as: life expectancy, approval rating, and maybe some of the others that do not seem to have any significance with regard to the decisions that must be made during the game. Example: Should I trade health resources with an AI who has the highest life expectancy? the lowest?

However, the more I play, the more I realize that some of this information might actually be very helpful if I knew its significance to the AI (on SP) and other players (on MP). How important is it to manipulate it (that is, do other players monitor it?).

I just started using BUG 3.6, so is there information available through that interface that might be tougher to mine in the traditional interface?

EDIT: I started this before re-checking Robi D's fine work on the Inner Workings of the Demographics Screen thread. It's updated for BTS 3.17. My main questions remain, although this thread should probably be appended to that and that original thread bumped....

 

[oyzar]

Trade health to the ones with highest life expectancy and happy to those with highest aproval rating(hard to track who have what though), as these have the lowest utilization.

Crop yeild, gnp and power ratings seems to be inportant figures in my games.

 

[TabascoBob]

OK, I get that- a rare "intuitive" decision. But what about the value of those measures to the AI? and do players in MP think they are even worth checking (if so, what do they check?)

Part of what I'm trying to figure out is, with BUG 3.6, and all the information available with that, is: what are "higher level" players looking at on the Demographics screen and should I try to use the customization features to emphasize that info?

I get power/soldiers (can't thank Robi D enough for the original work); as you work your way down the screen, how much of that actually winds up being relevant v. "flavor"?

 

[ProPain]

Good job Robi! Used this info quite a lot already in MP games. Thought it time to give a thumbs up for it!

 

[noto2]

I noticed that civic modifiers effect the graphs as well. For example, if a civ is building up its military, with each city buildng units, and it switches to PS, its MFG will make a big jump.

 

[Robi D]

OK, I get that- a rare "intuitive" decision. But what about the value of those measures to the AI? and do players in MP think they are even worth checking (if so, what do they check?)

Part of what I'm trying to figure out is, with BUG 3.6, and all the information available with that, is: what are "higher level" players looking at on the Demographics screen and should I try to use the customization features to emphasize that info?

I get power/soldiers (can't thank Robi D enough for the original work); as you work your way down the screen, how much of that actually winds up being relevant v. "flavor"?

I can only say what i know from my experience but GNP, Goods and Crops along with Soldiers are the main ones but th other catagories have their uses too. If your playing a 1v1 game then you know exactly where your rival is at in terms of potential growth when looking at happiness and health. In larger games there is no way to tell who is who (except for spending everything you earn on espionage but even thats no a certainty) i find it useful as a comparison for where i am.

For example my GNP is 6th but my health and happiness values are are 1st, then i know while i might be trailing in GNP i have a lot more potential to with increase my GNP since i can grow my population more, where as if my health and happiness were 10th then i know i have a problem because i'm more likely to lose ground rather than gain it. And the same goes for goods and crops.

One note of caution with GNP, it does include espionage and culture so being able to see the graphs is important as that gives you a decent idea how much they are contributing to someones GNP. If you want to go to the extreme to work out a more exact value then a small ruler and some maths will be required

With Land Area and Population, they are useful in the early stages of the game as you can see how many coastal starts and who popped their borders or gained extra pop but as you go along it becomes less meaningful. The imports/exports i can't say i've found especially important but i guess having a big positive number is better than a big negative one.

Hope that answers your question

 

[T-hawk]

I'd like to point out that the GNP calculation listed in the article is wrong:

Therefore the GNP calculation is;
Total commerce + total culture + total espionage + (total research * research bonus) – expenses.

Where it says commerce should be GOLD instead.

If it was commerce, it would double-count your beaker production, first as commerce and then as beakers.

 

[feelotraveller]

Luv your work Robi, this has been v. helpful.

Something is missing from the power calculation. I noticed in my last game that sabotaging the AI's metal mines (copper/iron) reduced their power. I just did a quick test with the WB and connecting a first copper resource added 2000 points to my power score. Not sure if this is for access to the strategic resource or ability to build the associated unit? Either way it is something else which gets added into the power figure.

Don't know if you want to follow this up but I thought that it should be mentioned for completeness.

 

[Danelius90]

Never fully understood this screen - useful stuff!
I don't get though, why the import/export is counter intuitive. Exports shows gold you get from stuff you.... export?

 

[T-hawk]

Never fully understood this screen - useful stuff!
I don't get though, why the import/export is counter intuitive. Exports shows gold you get from stuff you.... export?

It's intuitive from a profit standpoint. If the number is negative, it means the other guys are making more money off you than you are making from them. If it's positive, you are gaining more in trade routes than you are giving the other guys. A highly negative number is cause to consider adopting Mercantilism or closing borders.

 

[DaveMcW]

A highly negative number is cause to consider adopting Mercantilism or closing borders.

Not really... they may be making more total profit, but it is divided among several civs who will squander it competing with each other.

I would only close borders in a duel situation.

 

[rfcfanatic]

(BTS) While the whole Import/Export calculation is the same its no longer ranked on ratio but an absolute number; Imports – Exports. So a negative number means other nations are making more money from trade route to you the you are from them.

I have BTS 3.19, but my Demographics screen displays Exports - Imports instead of Imports - Exports. I'm not sure if the calculation mechanism is the same and only the labels have switched places, but this number is always negative when I play.

I suck at this category and I have no idea how to improve my play. Even if I build harbours and customs houses in all of my coastal cities and have open borders with most of the other civs, I am always holding the last place with negative number.

 

[SamSniped]

Same here. But just so you know, this is only updated to BtS 3.17 so far. I doubt much has changed, but IDK.

 

[ProPain]

I have BTS 3.19, but my Demographics screen displays Exports - Imports instead of Imports - Exports. I'm not sure if the calculation mechanism is the same and only the labels have switched places, but this number is always negative when I play.

I don't have Civ IV installed atm but can't you just test that by making a lux for gpt deal and checking the screen before and after?

If you sell a lux and get money, export goes up. If your number goes up they've changed the calculation. If your number goes down firaxis messed up the label.

Or is my thinking wrong here.

Also making a 'loss' on exports vs imports doesn't mean that you're doing bad. If you're importing luxes it's possible to make more money than you pay for the lux from the production of the extra happy citizens iirc. (Been a while since I fired up Civ IV)

 

[T-hawk]

but this number is always negative when I play.

It's negative because you're bigger, so the other civs have more trade routes to you producing more commerce, than you have from your trade routes to them.

I don't have Civ IV installed atm but can't you just test that by making a lux for gpt deal and checking the screen before and after?

Doesn't work that way. Gold payments between civs don't go into the number for imports/exports. These payments are added to or subtracted from the GNP number. Imports/exports only cares about trade routes, as in it's always zero when you are in Mercantilism.

 

[ProPain]

Imports/exports only cares about trade routes, as in it's always zero when you are in Mercantilism.

Thanks, coming back to me now.

If there's still doubt about the meter being export-import or vice versa you could test with a 2 player hotseat game. Start on a small pangea map, only build the capitals and connect them and you should be able to see the income generated at both ends and the result in the demo screen. If they equal out to 0 just build and connect 1 more city for one of the civs and/or grow population on one end.

 

[h@@kon]

It's negative because you're bigger, so the other civs have more trade routes to you producing more commerce, than you have from your trade routes to them.

Just discovered these numbers myself. Great thread by the way.

So i should not worry if its negative? I have very low number, but are the biggest one on the map. But that only means that the others civs have more trade routes with me, than i with them?

Is there a limit to number of trade routes? I never use mercantilism, but i should switch to that when negative number? (if i make 10 gold, and the others civs make 20 gold my number will be -2. If i stop trading i lose 10 gold, but the others lose 20 gold?)